Tags ArchivesBest Practices

Brands looking for new ways too engage customers may find potential in creating branded voice experiences on Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana. You don’t want to miss an opportunity and not enter the voice-enabled world that seems to be evolving every minute. While most marketers will agree that voice-activated smart devices and voice branding are in their infancy, you just can’t deny the explosive growth of this industry over the past couple of years. They have entered the homes of consumers everywhere, with an estimated 64 million U.S. households expected to be equipped with one by end of this year. Voice commands on Alexa are becoming like search on Google. And by 2020 more than half ...

Healthcare marketing efforts throughout the United States remain focused on addressing healthcare literacy in 2019. Large national studies have demonstrated that approximately one third of adult Americans have limited health literacy and describe feeling uncomfortable trying to navigate their medical benefits and the healthcare system. Among younger Americans the percentage is even higher with 56 percent reporting a lack of understanding. Healthcare literacy refers to health literacy, which is an individual’s ability to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions. Health insurance literacy is another component of healthcare literacy and represents the capability of people to have the knowledge to choose the best health plans and benefit options to fit their circumstances ...

This year’s holiday season is all about making the social world shoppable. In particular, companies are being given the access and the opportunity to make their content, images and videos shoppable this season. The reason this is big news for companies is this is a trend that interests people. According to PwC’s 2018 Holiday Lookout study, more than 40 percent of Millennials and 25 percent of Gen Z shoppers will purchase through shoppable photos this year. Here’s how social platforms are innovating this season – and you can too right along with them. Instagram just announced three new ways for users to shop while browsing their favorite photos of pets, food, travel, family and friends. The new features help people ...

It looks like the season is going to be merry and bright. Whether entertaining at home or socializing away from home, consumers are looking to celebrate with others and spend money doing so. Holiday sales are expected to increase 5 to 5.6 percent over last year’s season, according to Deloitte’s annual retail holiday sales forecast. Additionally, ecommerce sales are forecasted to grow 17 to 22 percent, reaching $128 to $134 billion throughout the 2018 shopping season. And even businesses that think they might not really be in a position to capitalize on any holiday spending need to realize there’s an opportunity. According to Deloitte’s 33rd Annual Holiday Consumer Spending Survey, over half of shoppers (51 percent) believe in the spirit ...

Email keeps evolving despite naysayers’ warnings that it is going away. Every year email continues to be ranked as an important tool marketers turn to for communicating with prospects and customers. Email marketing progresses as more data points, technology and insights provide a deeper understanding that marketers can channel into their strategies. With over 2.8 billion people worldwide using email as a digital communications tool, it’s worth marketers’ time to stay on top of the latest trends. Both small and large businesses report positive ROI with each of their email dollars bringing in an average return of $44. This is why email beats out every other platform in turns of performance over the past years. Clearly, there is a tremendous ...

Personalization in marketing means taking customer segmentation to the next level. It requires tailoring your marketing tactics to deliver the most relevant product, service or experience to the right customer segment at the right time, based on your knowledge of that customer and his or her preferences. That’s a tall order today, because customer touchpoints span across multiple channels including web, social, mobile, and physical locations. So while that makes it tough on the front-end to deliver customized content across all those channels, on the backend it means customers are providing companies with a good deal of information about their preferences and intent. Yet getting at the data from the multiple systems it sits on may be the biggest challenge ...

Quality digital content has the potential to help B2B marketers cost-effectively reach annual company goals. The key to pulling this off requires a commitment to providing content that puts your audience’s needs first. And it must happen at every point in the selling cycle. A recent survey by Clutch Research finds that 88 percent of B2B audiences read business content online at least once weekly to stay informed, research companies and make purchasing decisions. The report identifies four stages in the sales funnel and the content consumers consider during each phase in the sales conversion. Taking a look at their findings can help companies understand how to interact with B2B audiences and take advantage of opportunities to engage potential customers ...

In our last blog we discussed how to utilize live video in a company’s marketing mix. Live broadcasting allows for real-time company and customer interaction on social media’s most popular platforms. It may also seem a little scary for a company, especially one who hasn’t done much video creation in the past, to jump into live streaming. So let’s talk about another option companies should consider, thanks to Instagram’s new platform launch over the summer. In June, Instagram introduced IGTV, a new platform that allows companies to upload their phone-captured, long-form (as in up to an hour) videos for their followers to watch. This comes five years after the launch of video on Instagram, which only allows for one-minute videos ...

Live broadcasting offers businesses a way to give customers an inside look at their brand and tell their story in a little more interesting and engaging way. Companies of all sizes and social media budgets need to consider taking advantage of live streaming’s unique capabilities to provide timely content that captivates followers. This type of content is where all the growth is expected to happen over the next couple of years and therefore, stands to reason that it will boost a company’s growth strategy on social media as well. What is Live Broadcasting Live broadcasting can be done through these main social media platforms: Facebook Live, YouTube Live, Instagram Live or Twitter’s Periscope. Live broadcasting allows for real-time conversations with ...

Marketers’ jobs include a little bit of everything today. Companies are investing in social media, public relations, website and landing pages, advertising, email campaigns, blogging, vlogging, and the list goes on and on. And content creation for all these tactics is a critical component of their success. While technology has driven marketing in new directions, it has also provided marketers and content writers with new digital tools to help simplify their jobs. Today there are boundless apps and tools that didn’t even exist five or 10 years ago. Many of the tools you’re probably currently using may be MailChimp for email list and automation marketing, Hubspot for content creation or Buffer for social media scheduling and replying. However, there are ...

Small business owners face the challenge of being found in a highly competitive market crowded with many similar products and services. Consumers’ easy access to an enormous amount of information makes it even more difficult for companies to reach and convert leads into lasting customers. Facebook offers a way to initially attract potential customers through advertising and then interact with them through ongoing, personal engagement tactics inherent to the platform. Many small and medium-sized businesses, especially those in the service sector, may consider LinkedIn to be the only social network able to deliver B2B leads. However, marketers are finding that Facebook also has the potential to generate results through solid tools and targeted markets for lead acquisition. The reason is ...

We are swimming in a sea of information today. Companies are racing to provide content that engages and motivates their audiences. They are also constantly battling to prove their worth to clients, stakeholders, and even funding sources. All the while, statistics show that people are bombarded with up to 10,000 brand messages a day, have an attention span of just eight seconds, and are spending more than half their day consuming media content. It makes it tough to be seen in the marketplace. This is especially true if you need to present numbers and statistics, which often are pretty dull and boring. Into the spotlight steps, infographics, which offer a unique way to tell a visual story through numbers and ...

This post isn’t about us, as in Modern Marketing Partners. It’s about you. More specifically, it’s about your company’s website’s About Us page and why it probably needs some attention. Marketing professionals know (we look at Google Analytics) that About Us pages are some of the most frequently visited pages by customers, or more importantly, potential customers. They are one of the important stops a visitor on your site makes when considering to do business with you. And yet, many About Us pages are poorly written, lack creativity and are just plain boring. Think for a second about the last time you visited a company’s About Us page. You wanted to get to know the people behind the company, right? ...

In the age of information, it’s easy for a company’s audience to feel overexposed to marketing and ads. It’s also a lot of extra work for an organization’s staff to keep up with a multitude of platforms. It’s time to simplify marketing efforts, for the benefit of both the organization and purchasers. 6 Tips for Simplifying a Marketing Plan There are a number of ways to simplify your organization’s marketing process. Follow any of the following tips below for a simpler process. Zero in on Who Your Business is Selling to 50% of marketers use 10 or fewer profile segments, while the other half use up to 100 segments. Clearly, many businesses aren’t as focused as they believe they are ...

The growing popularity and use of social media has greatly expanded marketing opportunities for businesses over the past several years. Companies have joined the conversation by creating Facebook pages, Twitter handles, and Instagram feeds to reach people where they are spending time. Now, companies need to take the next step and harness the positive activity being spread about them on social media and integrate those messages throughout their other marketing channels. We’re talking about user-generated content (UGC). That’s where customers make the content for the business. A family photo about a great travel experience, a wonderful dinner prepared with foods from a specialty market, a quality garage door installation, all shared on social media, which is now has the potential ...

Looking for a way to nudge a prospect into purchasing and becoming a valued customer? A compelling customer success story can do the trick. Clearly communicating how your product or service has helped solve a real world problem for a customer makes your company’s offerings relatable and tangible to others in a positive and effective way different from all other types of marketing and advertising. No matter whether you use the term case study, testimonial or customer success story, it is one of the most powerful content marketing approaches companies can use today. A customer success story demonstrates the benefits of your products, your services, your company — rather than just tell about them. Delivering this type of differentiation during ...

They say spring is the most popular time for remodeling. For many people, who have just been cooped up indoors during the winter months with time on their hands to notice home improvements they would like made, this makes sense. Now, it’s time for businesses to consider a little spring rejuvenation project too. You’ve probably had your company website for years. You may have even redesigned it in the past few years (hopefully, yes. If not, please contact us – seriously.) You know your site forward and backward; you add images, include customer reviews, and even add new content regularly (well, pretty regularly). Kudos to you indeed. However, when is the last time you thought about your FAQ page? You ...

You’ve got it all going on. Your product(s) and company are doing well in the market. You’ve figured out your niche and how to effectively reach customers. It’s time to start actually growing and expanding. But are you really ready to scale the business? Sure, more customers are great, but with more customers come more logistic challenges. Let’s just say for example, you have a high-end, custom-wrapped product that requires a focused level of detail regarding preparation and packaging. Or perhaps, you’re planning on adding additional sales channels and now need to be prepared to ship 10 times the amount your operations currently handle. The fulfillment and distribution of your products is that often not talked about aspect of marketing ...

Our last blog discussed forming email strategy goals and a target audience. Here, we’ll re-visit 5 of our best practices from 2014, because the same ideas ring true today: (1) strategic subject lines, (2) avoiding spam filters, (3) calls-to-action, (4) mobile-optimizing, and (5) personalization. We’ve ramped it up with some current stats and facts. Use Strategic Subject Line Keywords To start, subject lines are the first thing customers see, so if you want a customer to open your email, it’s important to carefully craft a good subject. Focusing on subject line keywords, we take a look at how 6 common keywords perform: “You” – opened 5% less than those without “Free” – opened 10% more than those without “Quick” – ...

According to a recent study, blogging is used by 81% of business marketers, and 77% of consumer marketers (Source: Content Marketing Institute). No question, Blogging is now a proven marketing tactic for most marketing scenarios. Why? Because effective blogging can drive significant and measurable website traffic, build search engine authority, improve social media engagement, reinforce a thought leadership image, and even generate sales leads. So how can a marketer blog more effectively? Following are Top 10 Tips for Blogging Excellence with explanations of each, along with some additional resources. Top 10 Tips for Blogging Excellence: 1. How to Plan a Blog 2. Key Content Considerations 3. Properly Integrate Blog and Website 4. Employ all possible SEO 5. Blog Titles are ...

During June, Modern Marketing Partners will be hosting two webcasts. The first will be on Thursday, June 9th at 1 PM CST, titled Software Marketing Best Practices: Executive Briefing. The second, Thought Leadership Best Practices: Executive Briefing, will take place on Tuesday, June 14th at 1 PM CST. Software Marketing Best Practices: Executive Briefing Software prospects are often completely overwhelmed by the marketing of software companies. Standing out can become expensive, fast, but what if there’s a way to be just as effective on a smaller budget? What’s Covered: Understand the challenges of marketing software. Learn how even small brands can attain category leadership, and beat even the biggest competitors. Be privy to proprietary processes for building a thought leadership brand. ...

Link building, along with guest blogging, have been at the top of strategies deemed questionable since the releases of Google Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird. However, is link building dead? What is link earning? How can all of this improve your content strategy? Many websites have gotten penalized for questionable link building tactics over the course of the last year. Rap Genius, Expedia, even Google’s own browser, Google Chrome, have been hit with penalties in the past few years. Related: Google Hummingbird: Questions and Answers Of course, this was a big topic at Search Marketing Expo West (SMX) last month. But just as the algorithm changes, so do your tactics. Kaila Strong, Director of client strategy at Vertical Measures, has this ...

Email marketing, proves time and time again to be one of the most effective avenues in digital marketing. We gathered information from industry experts in email marketing to bring you the following 2014 Email Marketing Facts, Figures, Statistics, and Best Practices. A special thanks to FlightMedia, who brought together the “Ultimate Guide to Mastering Email Marketing in 2014,” we would like to share the best practices in email marketing for this year. We took the facts and statistics from this post and developed them into a simple B2B Friendly blog that will hopefully change the way you look at email marketing. The most recent averages from all 2013 Email Benchmark Reports (with an analysis of over 2.5 Billion emails) reports ...

Despite rumors of its demise, catalog marketing can be successful when properly executed. Because of incumbent printing, production and postage costs, catalog marketing can be quite expensive and unprofitable if not implemented correctly. Beside high profile, big budget consumer catalogs like Crate and Barrel or Victoria’s Secret, what are effective techniques for business-to-business or niche market catalogs? In the new whitepaper, “Catalog Marketing Best Practices”, we share the Top 10 Catalog marketing best practices, along with some examples, and additional resources. Top 10 Catalog Marketing Best Practices 1. Brand Identity 2. Design 3. Copy 4. Photography 5. Easy Ordering 6. The Mail List 7. Promotions 8. Niche Catalogs 9. Cross-Channel Marketing 10. Measurement No question, catalog marketing is declining with ...

Basic Best Practices for Building Out Your Facebook Business Page Let’s put it this way, if your company isn’t on Facebook, it’s harder for your products and services to be found. Face it – as much as you may want to resist Facebook as a social media channel, you will find that no matter what, some of your customers use it as their primary resource in learning about new companies, checking out their products, the company’s personality and more. Below we will cover absolute musts for building out your company business page for Facebook. These best practices will put you in a position to build your company’s brand awareness and generate new customer leads. Page Setup: Important Points on Facebook ...